Elf or Viking

I rather amuse my wife at times. Yesterday, for example, she burst out laughing when she looked at me after I got up from our tv lunch. Since laughter is the best medicine, I now share with you what she saw. Go ahead and laugh; I have no shame. She said I looked like an elf with those things on my ears  

One of my weird realities is that in certain positions, my hearing aids weigh heavily on me. In point of fact, my ears can get rather sore. Thus, Sue has provided me with little pads that she uses to apply makeup. They soften the impact. 

Usually, one ear bothers me more than the other, but yesterday, I couldn’t determine which ear was worse. I kept switching the one pad back and forth but then realized that I could do both ears at once.

Sue said I looked like an elf. Then, she dug out a Christmas elf hat to complete the look. What do you think?

That evening, we attended a little camera club meetup. After showing my elfin selfies to Bob, he thought he could present me better. He snuck a shot and did this with AI.

I think I look better as a Viking than I do as an elf, but I think elfin me is more amusing. Whatcha think?

November Remnants

As you know, we walk almost daily, snapping photos willy nilly — not really, but we do snap a lot. Some pictures don't make it into my almost daily posts, so here are a few of those November photos that were overlooked at the time.

On the very first of November, we were in the Blue Spoon Atelier when I became absorbed by the man who, in turn, was totally absorbed in his phone, presumably in a video, probably a movie. On first glance, it seemed as though he might be deep in meditation, but of course, there are ear buds.

A few days later, while walking in the park and photographing tamarack trees, we spied this single mallard and his reflection, with his reflection also being in the golden glow of reflected tamaracks. I tend to feel sorry for animals on their own. I guess there are loners in every species. While I am a bit of a loner, I have almost always had a friend or three, including family, of course.

Going in sequential order, next comes a sunset view from the bedroom, followed by a similar view from another time that is a little out of sequence. Thank goodness for the wire removal feature in Photoshop.

After a light snow, I captured fallen leaves in a property just a few doors up on another of our trudges. I think I moved the leaf to the bench in the first photo, but they were as they fell on the driveway in the second photo. Oops, the photos got reversed.

Another fallen leaf on another day: just a maple leaf on snow — very Canadian, eh?

The next photo was very cool to me. Snow remains almost only in the shadow of the bridge railing. I am sure that this effect is abetted by people tending to walk along the edges, just as we see the couple doing in the photo. 

Finally, there are the Christmas lights. Our neighbour has his tiny front yard so full that it is difficult to get a good picture, but I tried to isolate a little patch of the display in this photo — a small train in front with other things behind.

What will we see in December?

It Wasn't All Bleak

It is the final day of November. At the beginning of the month, I wrote of November being The Bleak Month. Of course, I was thinking, primarily, of the loss of leaves and colour, but November doesn't have to be bleak in spirit. For example, the recent family tree decorating party was a happy event that I don't need to rehash, having thoroughly hashed it already.

A recent trudge along the trail by the arena, however, does reveal the frequent exterior bleakness although the sky and fallen leaves do yield some colour.

That ↑ is the trail where we sometimes take a short offshoot to see what is happening down by the river. Behold! there was ice.

As far as we could tell, this was the only icy section both upriver and downriver, where the water is shallow and runs slowly. However, we know what is coming.

You will doubtless recall that there were breaks in the environmental bleakness. We had two snowfalls that brightened the landscape for the time being, and the overnight third one adds brightness this morning even though it is still otherwise dark outside. There was also that glorious hoar-frosted morning. And don't forget the Christmas lights beginning to spring forth.

Of course, I feasted pictorially on the glorious tamaracks, and there are still a few needles hanging on some trees: the one in the background left at the far end of the pond, for example. Very very few on the nearest tree though: poor thing.

Not only do some of the tamaracks still hold a wee bit of colour, but more and more Christmas decorations and lights also continue to appear around the streets, like the house 3 doors down. 

For the young families, Santa visited town last night in the annual parade. I no longer attend, But Danica and her beau did. For lack of a current photo, here is mine of Santa and Mrs Claus in November 2010.

More of Grandma's Smocking

Recently, I mentioned my mother's smocked Christmas balls, and someone wanted to see more. By the way, we still tend to refer to my mother as grandma like we did when our kids were young. Sue has always been Amma to our grandkids, so there is not an identity issue.

Here they are a number of pictures, all done by Sue, except for the first one, I think, when we trimmed the tree.

Two Things

Thing 1

The Cystoscopy proceeded as per usual, except between dousing my vital parts with a cold disinfectant (I guess that is what it was) and leaving me in stirrups in the cold examining room for what seemed like a very long time before the doctor arrived, my hindermost parts were starting to more than a tad chilly. lol

Here ↓ is the doc's conclusion. It leaves me confused. While I am super pleased about passing the physical inspection, which I was able to follow on a big, sharp monitor, I remain confused about the extremely frequent urination. Hopefully the meds will help.

"He has had an excellent result from his bladder neck incision and Mitomycin-C injection. He is having worsening storage symptoms and I think there may be a component of overactive bladder here so I will treat him with Myrbetriq. Follow-up in 3 months"

====================

Thing 2

Having taught all of the varieties ↓ in my 30 years, I understand the sentiment. Aside from the spelling, there is also the pronunciation issue. Do you say the first syllable as in ME, May or MEG?

Second Snow

I am posting for the second time today because they are backing up in the queue. I have set my post-time to mid-afternoon when we should be settling down to a restaurant lunch with daughter after an examination by the urologist at the big hospital in Ottawa. I wonder what he will have to say and if I will want to report on that tomorrow or if I would prefer to bury my head in the proverbial sand. Time will tell.

We had our second significant snowfall of the month on Sunday: significant enough but not to the extent of the first one with plows not being required for the most part.

Our snow tires were not installed until Tuesday, but we took a chance and did a little driving about regardless.  Sue required river photos, so off we went. We didn't have to drive far in this town, and we were careful. We are Canadian after all.

We parked the car close to the river downtown, but I was taking pictures of this planter before we had walked but a few steps past the little art store.

I don't know whether Sue used the photo that she was taking in this next scene, but it shows what she was working with. The day was almost monotone anyway, so after the planter photo, above, I converted all of my subsequent pictures to black and white, often with a little toning added in the later photos.

This is a rather historic building by the bridge and opposite town hall. Who knows how many pictures I have taken like this almost-historic structure over the years, but I decided to take one more, and I am pretty sure it won't be the last one ever. The falling snow is visible as it is in most of the photos. While I emphasized softness in the other photos, I decided to show texture and contrast in this one, so it looks a little out-of-step with the rest of the images.

Looking across the bridge, I snapped a photo of the old mill, including the fence because fences are useful for one my Flickr memes.

From the main bridge we drove to the little, back bridges where I photographed a variation of other similar photos that I have taken over the years. As often as I capture this scene behind the old Baines building, each is unique in some way. I liked the curvy, snowy path in this one.

Finally: I took a photo of a bit of the north-facing riverbank in the falling snow. The two tall, stark trees, almost in the middle of the frame, drew my attention.

Sue captured me taking the above shot. Look beyond colourful me to see how b&w our winter world can be even without converting to mono. 

Despite our long and formidable winters. We don't often get out to take pictures when the snow is still falling, and I rather like the soft mood and effect that it creates.

Tires and Coffee

The time had come to get our tires changed — all season tires off, snow tires on. Following one of my shorter nights — only 4:40 according to Sleepwatch — I needed a coffee. I drove through the drive through on my way to the garage.

Boy O Boy, did I need a coffee

It wasn't my first caffeine hit of the day, but it was the first good one and only the second overall.

In an effort to economize, we recently switched from the increasingly expensive Belgian Chocolate mix that we had been consuming for years to a big can of Tim Hortons, which was satisfactory. But, when Tim's coffee was no longer on a good sale, we opted to try a well-known, ubiquitous, cheap brand that shall not be named, but I will say that it comes in a predominately blue packaging. Said brand is not very good on the first drop, never mind the last one.

So that is why I went through the drive through, after which I drove to the garage, handed them my keys, sat down and revelled in sipping my drink while I waited.

There were four other fellas waiting for their tire change, and like me, they were all on their phones. It seems that not so very long ago, I would have picked up whatever magazines were on offer to pass the time. Now, waiting rooms can save the cost of most magazine subscriptions. Mind you, providing us with wireless is an expense.

Meanwhile, movie filming was transpiring on main street. Pamela Anderson is a vaguely recognizable name to me. I don't know the fella, but apparently is name is Michael Cera, and also, apparently, I should know who he is.

If you are interested here is a link to a CBC news video. I wish that I could just pop the video in directly, but you have to click through. Of the many pizzarias in town, they briefly interviewed the proprietor of the one we patronize.

(https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/michael-cera-pamela-anderson-spotted-at-film-shoot-in-carleton-place/vi-AA1R4Slc?ocid=socialshare)